Constructive Interference

Allen Samuels

Allen Samuels explores the reasons why we create things. He compares the life-or-death prototyping process of mastodon hunters with the digital fabrication that we have access to today, and seeks to understand the way that these changing circumstances alter the way we think about design.

Aditi Hardikar

Aditi Hardikar works as a community organizer on a national scale, representing the LGBT community across the entire country in the White House. At only 25, she believes that youth, determination, confidence and perspective can be the most powerful tools a person can have, and advocates strongly for the advantages of disadvantages.

Herbert Winful

Herbert Winful studies complicated phenomena related to nonlinear optics, however at heart he is an artist. He sees the beauty in everything, including Maxwell's equations, and relishes the chance to explore creative expression in various fields.

Kyra Gaunt

Kyra Gaunt examines patriarchal bargains and bottomlines of self-presentation in the age of new media. She explores the larger implications of social trends with a special focus on twerking.

Michelle Krell Kydd

Michelle Krell Kydd has the unique ability to see the world through her nose. With an unparalleled ability to identify, evaluate, and describe thousands of scents, Kydd explores the identity of scent and what life would be like without it.

Shai Revzen

Shai Revzen believes that our next frontier in robots is making robots using materials that we find around us at the time we need them. He also is fascinated by legs, and how they have evolved into what they are today - autonomous systems that keep us upright and help us balance ourselves without realizing exactly how we are.

Raj Mehta

Raj Mehta is a recovered heroin addict from Detroit who now specializes in addiction therapy. Raj understands from experience how complicated addiction can be and he knows the keys to freeing oneself from it. He is working to improve how people understand addiction across the state of Michigan.

Jill Halpern

Jill Halpern is dedicated to bringing humanity back to classrooms. On the intellectual side, her professional interests include teaching as a wisdom tradition, math as language, and modern physics as philosophy. In the broader realm of social issues, her passions include equal access in education and multicultural classrooms.

Bob Mankoff

Considered "the gatekeeper of humor", Bob Mankoff really understands how to make people laugh through cartoons. Bob is fascinated with the idea of crowdsourcing humor, and explores how cartoons work (and sometimes don't), and what crowds can tell us about a good joke.

Dory Gannes

Dory Gannes understands what it means to "do good," a term that loses value as a result of overuse and abstraction. She seeks to balance idealism and reality on an individual scale so that we can all find our own framework for actionable positive influence.

Cliff Lampe

Dr. Lampe's area of research is computer-mediate communications with a speciality in e-Communitites and Social Media. He is interested in how people can engage in collective action using tools that support their doing so. Put another way, he's interested in how groups use internet communities to accomplish goals.

Valerie Tran

Valerie Tran is a graduate student, Co-Director of Nurses for Cool and Healthy Homes, and 2014 Dow Sustainability Fellow. Her work explores issues of health equity and environmental justice, and she believes that urban planning offers practical strategies for addressing the health impacts of climate change.

Samantha Rea

Samantha Rea finds that optimism is a choice, and that the attitude you have when facing challenges has a real impact on the lives of others.

John Carethers

John Carethers believes that empowering patients can simultaneously improve health care and reduce costs. By comparing statistics across many practices and procedures, he explores the possibility that our medical calculus may sometimes be "too safe."